You Are What You Eat

We've all heard that phrase before, "You are what you eat".

This is a perfect example of one of those things that changes meanings as you get older.
Such as the movie, Cars.
A little kid watches that, and laughs at the little kid jokes.
Teenagers will watch the movie and laugh at other subtleties.
Grown ups catch yet more jokes, that most idiot teenagers blatantly miss, like the Car Talk guys in the Rust-Ease booth.
The movie bears more meaning still to people who grew up in the 50's and remember what life was like back then with them neon lights. Nostalgia. Strong stuff.

Anywho, when we're little kids, "You are what you eat" is pretty concrete. [kids only understand the concrete. duh.] Parents use it to scare kids into eating healthy (you don't want to turn into a big tub of ice cream, do you?) and there was that old Magic School Bus where Arnold eats Sea-Weedies and turns orange because they're made out of carrots.

As we mature and age, we learn not to dwell on the sickeningly obvious.
The other day, people were talking about how Berwick english classes screw us up for the SATs, because we're so good at finding obscure, thoughtful meaning that doesn't actually exist.
Abstract thought always made me queasy.

But really, we realize that the term, "you are what you eat" means so much more than what's related to food.
We realize that the people we hang out with, the music we listen to, the books we read, the movies and shows we watch... it's all what we "take in".
It's what we eat.
And it's what forms us. Molds us. Makes us who we are.

The Bible references, multiple times, how what we are dictates what we make.
In Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus talks about trees and their fruits:
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them."

So everything we take in influences us.
And that influence makes its way out of us back into the world in everything you do.

Let's pick on emo kids.
Because they love being picked on.
And they're so perfect for picking on.

You're an impressionable 6th grader.
One of your highschool friends is wicked cool.
He is like, the man, like, and dyes his hair black, and wears black tight jeans, and talks wicked cool with a fake lisp... one day he gives you a cd of some emo music.
You love it, naturally, and start getting into wicked emo stuff.
Everyone around you thinks you're cool, because you're only in middle school and you're already hardcore.
4 years later, you're in the same position your friend was when you were in middle school.
You're like, the leader of the emo posse.

[i'm sorry that wasn't more detailed, i really couldn't think of any good examples...]
Anyway, use your imagination.
You take in crap, you become crap, and then you start spewing crap to everyone else.
[not saying anything about emo kids here... just using them as an example. ha.]

Now, this concept of "you are what you eat" and bearing fruit has a spiritual aspect as well.

In Romans 7:46, Paul lets the Church in Rome onto something.
"So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Chris, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old was of the written code."

We start out in life filled with sinful nature.
I wrote a line down during sunday school today: "Humility isn't natural; we have to learn to be humble."
See, naturally, we humans are a nasty bunch. We lie, we cheat, we steal, etc.
But look again at what Paul said.
"But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old was of the written code."

When we start following Jesus, we get filled with the holy Spirit. We stop 'taking in' everything of the world.
We read what God has to say in the Bible, we talk to other christians, we go to church and youth group.
We become released from sin, and that begins to show itself in our "fruits".
You could say we go from being a "bad tree" to being a "good tree".
We bear good fruit, not bad fruit.
And that goes for both spiritual, and physical things.
The way we talk, walk, act, communicate, think, perceive, and understand the world become new and different from that of the World.

On top of that, the last part of the verse in Matthew was that "by their fruit you will recognize them."
People will recognize the good trees by the good fruit.
We set an example for others; we show them what its like to be a good tree and have good fruit.

And if you ask me, the world could use some more good trees.